


Androids' First Valentine

by LittleLalaith



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, Mostly completely innocent; except Connor is a mischievous tease.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-12
Updated: 2019-02-12
Packaged: 2019-10-27 02:41:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17758241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleLalaith/pseuds/LittleLalaith
Summary: A collection of drabbles and short stories, focusing on how the androids of DBH spend their first Valentines Day.Each chapter is a fresh timeline/pairing.Feel free to add suggestions in the comments! ;p





	1. Something Worth More than Fear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ralph is still scared of the humans, but his love for Daniel glows even brighter.   
> He faces that fear to do something special for his Valentine.

Ralph approached the open doorway to the kitchen slowly, his nerves still fragile from the day’s exertions, but it had all been worth it. He had faced his fears as best as he could and he’d earned his reward - ever since Markus has liberated their kind, the humans had been much nicer, but Ralph was still cautious, always watching, always alert - ready to run. But not today. Today, he’d taken his nursery of potted plants to the sidewalk and sold as many as he could to the people that passed. It was almost evening by the time he collected enough money and summoned the courage to walk into the store. 

Clutching the small box in his hands, he stepped into the kitchen and took a moment to admire the PL600 working attentively on the graffiti-streaked walls. Daniel had been treating the kitchen for damp and had filled in the holes where Ralph’s anger had gotten the best of him in the past. It was starting to look more like a real home, like the humans had, only neater and cleaner. Ralph walked over and slipped his free arm around Daniel’s waist slowly, pressing a kiss to the back of his neck. 

“It looks lovely in here… But you can’t work all day. Ralph has a surprise for you.” he murmured softly, anticipation casting a grin over his features. 

Daniel turned to face him, greeting Ralph with a delicate kiss - he was always surprised by how well Daniel could read his mood, forever adjusting the intensity of his affection to suit Ralph’s nerves. It was one of the many things that he loved about Daniel. One of the many, many things. 

“I wondered where you’d been all day. I was starting to get worried,” Daniel responded, reaching up to brush back a loose lock of Ralph’s hair. “You seem tense, is everything ok?”

Ralph nodded slightly, feeling the stresses of the day slipping away now that he was safe in Daniel’s arms. He didn’t have to be afraid when he was with Daniel, didn’t have to fight so fiercely to keep himself safe. He would never be able to fully express how much he owed to the beautiful android that had chosen to be his.

“Ralph was nearby, just outside the house…”

“Outside the house. Like on the street?” Daniel frowned slightly, but it softened and changed into something that sat in the spaces between pride and curiosity. “What were you doing out there?”

Ralph grinned and stepped back slightly, pressing the small box into Daniel’s hands. “Happy Valentine’s Day.”

The PL600 replacement faceplate sat nestled in a foam mold, waiting to be secured with a careful hand. “Ralph loves Daniel, scars and all. But he’s noticed that you worry about your face… you want to go back to work, and Ralph wants to help you. So he sold his plants and bought you this. He can help you to replace your damaged part so that you can work with children again, just like you wanted.” 

For a moment, Daniel didn’t move; his LED cycling into yellow. Ralph hesitated, doubt pouring into the silence and making him suddenly anxious. Maybe he had gotten it all wrong. Maybe Daniel hadn’t worried about his face at all and now Ralph had upset him. Maybe Daniel thought that Ralph was pushing him to get back into childcare when he wasn’t ready. Worst of all, he might think that Ralph didn’t like the look of his scars, that Ralph was trying to change him. This had been a stupid idea. Stupid-

Then Daniel’s lips were on his, hands pulling him into a close embrace that made him tense momentarily before he relaxed into the familiar safety of Daniel’s loving gesture. He kissed back, cupping Daniel’s cheek in his palm to keep him close, even when he eventually broke away with the kind of soft laughter that made Ralph think of summer at the local park or quiet evenings with his lover - a laugh reserved for Ralph. One that translated to “I love you.”


	2. To Ralph - Love, your Valentine(s)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jerry surprises Ralph with the Valentine's stock they found in storage

Jerry bit his lower lip softly, trying to keep the rampant giggle securely under control; he could sense Jerry looking at him and he knew that if he glanced over they would both start laughing and the whole surprise would be ruined. Maybe it had been a mistake for two of them to hide in the same place… but they had heard Ralph calling for them and they ran out of time to get into their own hiding spots. Jerry could hear him now, calling for them as he made his way through the park. 

Jerry risked a peek over the edge of the bar, resisting the urge to go over to him and wrap him in a hug to keep out the cold - the only non-Jerry in the park, Ralph was walking down the main boulevard, his cargo sheet cape wrapped firmly around his torso to keep the cold wind from bothering his exposed wounds. Jerry couldn’t help but stare, enrapt with the strong physique of the gardener android, the way his dexterous hands pushed back his wind-swept hair, expression twisted with concern when he failed to find even one of the Jerrys.

“Is he coming in?” Jerry asked, using their hive-connection to keep the discussion silent. 

Jerry opened the connection for his surveillance network and fed the images to the rest of his companions; Ralph hesitating at the cross-roads between the bar and the ferris wheel, bending down to pick up the rose petal left on the path and following the line of pink satin droplets to the door, a strong arm bracing against the door to force it open against the rust and wear of time. Time slowed as Jerry focused his processors on the sight of Ralph, capturing every slight change in his expression as it passed from confusion, to realisation, to hesitant joy. Hesitant… time to shine. 

“Happy Valentines Day!” Jerry called out in unison, each of them popping up from their hiding spots to surprise him. 

Ralph started sharply, LED flicking to red instantaneously, but then fading to yellow and blue when he realised who had shouted. “Jerry, you frightened Ralph!” he scolded, but he was grinning and the reprimand had been lined with a laugh. 

“We couldn’t resist. You’re getting so much better with surprises and you always smile so brightly afterwards” Jerry smiled, walking around the bar to embrace his skittish Valentine. “What do you think?”

Ralph looked around the run-down structure, taking in the heart-shaped banners and napkins; the surfaces decorated in rose petals; the 5ft prize bear with the red ribbon and bow; even the way each of the Jerrys had found a shirt and red bow-tie for the occasion. Best of all was the collage of love-notes pinned to the wall in the shape of a heart, a note written by each Jerry and a few spaces in the shape filled with photos of Ralph and Jerry (sometimes Ralph with Jerry and Jerry) together on their walks around the park - each was a frame taken from their surveillance network and printed at the seldom-visited office, but the effect was the same. 

“Ralph loves it….” he barely more than whispers, gripping Jerry tightly against him. “But… he didn’t get you anything…”

Jerry shook his head and kissed Ralph’s uninjured cheek sweetly, “You’re here. You make us happy. That’s all we could ever want.”


	3. Inappropriate Work Uniform

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connor decides to wear something special to work - Hank isn't going to be able to focus.

Hank had been working with Connor for long enough now that he could tell when something was off, a skill that had been refined and sharpened since they’d started living together - more than living together. It’s not that Hank was reluctant to call it courting or dating (aside from the fact that those terms made it sound like they were randy teenagers), only that they hadn’t really put a label on it. Not yet. It was in that weird stasis phase between “more than friends” and “not quite settled in their relationship”. They were learning to co-exist, discovering new things about each other as each day passed… so Hank was fairly confident that he could tell when Connor was bothered by something. 

The android had been distracted during the briefing and his attention occasionally wandered, his usual inhuman stillness broken up with small readjustments of posture and more shirt fixing than was strictly necessary. If Hank didn’t know better, he’d have guessed that his partner’s shirt was itching him each time he moved - but that couldn’t be it. Connor didn’t register itching (as they’d discovered following some activities that should have left their fair share of beard-rash). When Connor stretched his arms back for the third time since they’d entered the crime scene, Hank placed a hand on his shoulder and looked him over. 

“You alright? You’ve been acting ansty ever since we pulled up,” he checked, out of both professional concern and a very unprofessional desire to have a quiet moment alone with Connor.

“Sorry, Lieutenant. I think I might need to recalibrate my posture… I seem to have over-exerted myself somehow,” the git actually winked at him as he said it and Hank had to run his tongue firmly over his canine to keep from smirking. 

“S’at right?” he answered, glancing quickly at the other officers before leaning a little closer. “Well, you do what you have t-”

He stopped and frowned slightly, gaze scanning over the expanse of Connor’s chest. Regardless of Connor’s new status as a Detroit Citizen, independent of Cyberlife or anyone else who might want to own him, the fussy android insisted on wearing his uniform jacket. Hank had eventually convinced him to swap the branded and banded Cyberlife jacket for a plain grey blazer, but it had been a struggle. But that wasn’t the problem. The problem was the raised band running along the width of Connor’s chest - Hank couldn’t see the colour or details of it through the white shirt and the dim lighting, but there was definitely a raised line across his chest. 

“Who gave you a holster?” he asked, reaching across to run a fingertip over the band, but Connor hastily intercepted him. 

“Nobody gave me a holster. I’m not armed,” Connor answered, though his tone was a little too insistent for Hank’s liking. 

“Leave of it, I can see the line of it through your shirt,” Hank countered, wondering why the android was being so secretive. “If you wanted a holster, you could have just said. I’d have authorised it.”

Connor gave him a look then, and it took Hank a moment to realise that it wasn’t the disapproving look he often gave when Hank suggested giving him special privileges… but a pointed gaze, one that said ‘keep up, Hank’. “I told you. I’m not wearing a _holster_.”

Oh. Now that wasn’t fair. 

“Connor… why are you wearing something like that to work?” Hank growled, keeping his voice as low and quiet as he could manage, considering his thoughts were now firmly focused on the image of Connor in nothing but the harness he’d decided to add to their explorations. No wonder he’d been so worried about how the shirt sat on his frame, he was probably trying to keep it under wraps until they had some time alone. That, or he wouldn’t put it past Connor to test how long it took Hank to notice. Mission accomplished, he couldn’t un-notice it now. “Go and take that thing off, before I take it off for you…” 

“I’m afraid I can’t. The key is back at the house… you’ll just have to wait until we finish our shift. And maybe, if I do well today, you can let me out of it…”

It was suddenly far too warm in this house, and there were too many people around for Hank’s liking. Too many people who might notice the healthy flush in his cheeks. Connor smiled softly and turned his attention back to their surroundings, acting as though nothing had happened. Business as usual. “Focus, Lieutenant. We have a crime to investigate.”

That little plastic prick...


End file.
